Just Do More, Richards

I've missed doing this. I've missed doing this with this band. A two gig Saturday with my Fred's House chums, two festivals. We used to do this stuff all the time, but we're all so busy with other things these days. When we do get together it's a bit of a treat, though and that was the case at the weekend. Two festivals; the first one a REALLY packed sold-out show in the afternoon. Whilst the rest of the line-up, particularly ours on the main stage, seemed to be on the heavier side of things, I like the fact that we never compromise - we play our nice, happy, summery, original tunes.  We then headed over to Bedford to headline a festival there, which was a little smaller but really lovely.  The gigs were fine; we were tight, we should be after all these years, and we're clearly still into it despite barely gigging. But it's not just about the gigs, is it? It's about the backstage chat, the catching up over grub, the long car chats. Lovely stuff.

I've had a lovely few days on the road. My car is still making weird rattling noises (including a few new ones) but when it really gets warmed up, it's fine, and the 500-mile round trip to Durham didn't feel like an issue at all...if anything, it drove really nicely.  Durham's a lovely place, but I didn't see much of it as I'm rubbish at being a solo tourist. Indeed, in the many spare hours I had between shows, I found a layby, sat in the back (tinted windows), and did some admin work (teaching invoices, tour booking) on my laptop, using my phone's 5G hotspot. The whole car office thing was rather cool once I'd removed the smelly dog blanket and bought a meal deal from Sainsbury's.  The venue for Durham was a 'proper' theatre, 70-capacity. The manager seemed concerned that I brought my own PA speaker with me rather than using theirs, and that I didn't bother with any fancy stage lighting ("just switch them on mate, I'll tell the ...

Schools out! Although I seem to be teaching more than ever...lots of drum courses, in some cases for the really young kids it's bordering on babysitting. I already have a business called, 'Team Building with Drums', maybe next it should be 'Babysitting with Drums'...I'm a VERY expensive, noisy babysitter, though... Alongside the courses, I've been writing, lots, as always. Edinburgh is creeping up, I like what I'm doing with those (despite a bit of a panic earlier about the 'Band Playing...' show although it's pretty much worked wherever I've done it apart from the first day in Brighton), but also launching two new shows in October. I like being a one-man theatre company. I also like working with actors, but I don't like the constant Doodle Polls for availability.  Played an odd gig on Saturday with a makeshift blues band, a 70th birthday party in the rain, but it still worked. Although massively under-rehearsed, stick good musicians ...

Being self-employed is a tricky one, isn't it? I go from "help, I don't have enough work!" (because in one of my schools, 12 out of the 17 students are in year 6 so they're about to leave) to suddenly "help, I've got so much work coming in I can't breathe" which is where I am right now. Which is probably a good thing, apart from the lack of breathing, obviously, because fringe accommodation costs waaaayyy too much but I have no choice but to pay it and my car is making so many rattling scraping sounds people are actually looking out of their windows at me.  But it also means I'm massively late in updating this, and I have some good times to write about - mostly about last weekend. This all came after a fun script reading of my very new show with Izzy and Alan, and a much needed catch-up with Esther, the first time we've seen each other since the fun/many arguments of the Brighton Fringe; no arguments this time, just two excited people wit...

As the school term tumbles to a close, so do the school concerts. The latest one, yesterday, was fantastic - it's remarkable how the kids can turn it on in front of a big audience (the whole school plus their parents). True, so there is a tiny part of me that wonders why they can't always be that awesome in the lessons, but then again we were in a band rehearsal the other day and I was MILES OFF the pace, yet I know that for Sunday's gig I'll be professional and there won't be any issues. It's the live buzz, isn't it? I'm looking forward to the gigs this month, four with FH, our first of the year. For a band that used to rack up to a hundred shows a year, it's weird that it's July and we've barely seen each other, but it's nice to be back in the rehearsal room with the guys and gals, as much as we were a bit sloppy. A wake-up call in a rehearsal is a good thing, yeah? The first of those four shows, all festivals, is this Sunday. On givin...

Great tune, Get Action, it's by a band called the Delgados and you should check them out. It's from their final (for now) album which felt less orchestral, more direct, and when it first came out I was printing sewerage maps for Anglian Water as a spotty early-20-something and treated myself to a CD every Friday from a local branch of MVC to cheer myself up because everything else in life felt shit. But the album, Universal Audio, was a winner, and I stumbled into it on Spotify the other day and gave it a spin whilst driving to one of my schools.  Anyway, Get Action sums up my July mood. I've got over my 'it's too hot' grump, even if it is - turns out all I needed to do was find the iced coffee function on the machine in my office. June felt a little flat; a few gigs cancelled due to poor sales, a choir show cancelled due to lack of singers, the school term feeling a bit longer than normal with the kids just wanting summer holidays. Next week looks brilliant; a ...